RMJ, to answer your initial q, I'm angry at him for refusing to take care of me and ours when I asked him to. He wouldn't ask me to take care of him. He would assume I would take care of the kids. I would assume he wouldn't take care of anything except what was important to him at the moment...work, dust, refrigerator gaskets...so when I told him I NEEDED him to take care of people and he yelled at me about it, yeah, I got angry and today brought it back to mind, because I know how he feels, and I would never want him to feel that bad AND be piled with hatred and neglect on top.

I can't imagine what kind of human being could do that.

I can...but he passed a polygraph.

Why are you holding onto the resentment from something that happened a year ago?

I will take a swing at this one.

Because when you are sick/weak/hurting/emotionally burdoned you are vunerable>sp? in ways you are not used to operating by. It is scary, even if you admit it to yourself or not.

To realize that your spouse disregaurds your pain and discredits your condition only erodes basic foundation survial trust.
(If he/she dumps me in my current state for the "little things", what is going to happen in a serious scanario?)
It is no coincidence that the vows say "In sickness and in health."

This situation taps into some deep emotions. I understand it... but I agree KT, this "vent" may be needed to be looked at more closely by CWMI and dealt with.

I totally understand what your husband meant.

To me, the fun of skeet shooting would be doing it with the other people. Doing it by myself at the end wouldnt' be fun, and wouldn't feel (to me) like it counted--especially if I didn't even get to do the skeet part.

Sure, it would perhaps be more accurate to say "I didn't get to shoot until the very end, when everyone was already done. It wasn't even SKEET shooting, though".

But if I'm telling the story to communicate my feelings about how the day went, saying "I didn't even get to shoot" could well paint a more accurate picture of how I EXPERIENCED the event.

This is exactly what I thought when I read it. It doesn't SEEM like a lie to me.

Ladies, this is how I put it to him when he began backtracking with, "That's not what I meant, you misunderstood..."

I said, "imagine I had gone to an event where alcohol was served, and I came home and told you that I did not drink. Then you found a picture on the internet, of me at the event, with a beer to my lips. And I started explaining to you that what I meant was that I hadn't drank during the event, but slammed four or five at the end."

Someone who has his history of being untruthful and claims to want to restore the trust he has broken ought to be a bit more careful in his statements, don't you think? The problem here is that I don't know what the truth is. He told me he didn't get to shoot. I find a picture of him shooting. Was it popping rounds at the end of the day? Or was it earlier with the rest? I don't know what to believe because I was told he DID NOT SHOOT, and was only told the other after I discovered different. Do you get it now?

Clearly, I am not over it. It's not something I've thought about for a long time. But seeing him sick and imagining what I would have to feel in order to walk out on him and leave him with a bunch of rambunctious kids--to go socialize, or put in an extra 20 hours at work--I would have to be a monster to do something like that. I would have to want him to just die, I would have to want everyone in my family to know that I just DESPISE them. Ouch, ouch, ouch. It breaks my heart. What the heck was he thinking???

you know, CWMI, your alcohol/event example reminds me of some volunteer work when I was young. I'd do special events for vets. Of course, with Nam vets, the alcohol flowed freely. The help didn't drink during the event, but there were many beers after the event ended and clean-up was done. If the question had been put to me, I probably would have said "no I didn't drink" meaning during the event. So he might not be lying, it might just be a high level of abstraction of speaking on his part. He communicates in the general, where you are specific.

btw, liars usually use general speak when lying. But generalities don't necessarily equate lies.

You abstract people are weird.

I feel like I was deceived. I was told something that was not true. If i had spoken to someone else who had gone to the event and said, "H was so disappointed that he didn't get to shoot," I imagine they would wonder why I said that, since they saw my H shoot.

He was a half hour late leaving to head home. He told me that was because they had to take down the banners and it took longer. I find picture. He tells me that was AFTER the other shooting, so I asked him if that was the real reason he was late. He said no, that picture was taken well BEFORE the end of the event, it didn't hold him up.

Sorry, I don't believe him.

I have NO IDEA what the truth is, but I do know that he would hide 'having fun' from me especially if it was the reason why he wasn't keeping his word to be home at a certain time.

Forgive me - I'm not familiar with your history. Was he like this when you were dating?

I'm not like that anymore. Living with my high abstraction DH has made me quite low abstraction. I say to him, "You're being to general, I'm not following you, please be more specific,"

And he basically admitted that he shot during the event. That's not good. There's no solid foundation for M when a spouse lies.

(((((CWMI)))))

Why do you think he would feel the need to hide having fun from you?

In this case? Because he made a big stink about not wanting to go, and how he and one of the other guys told the boss they were leaving at *exactly* 5pm and not hanging out to mingle with the guests because they were already spending 6 hours with the guests, which was more time than their own families would have with them that day. He forwarded me the email saying so.

So if he told me that he did decide to stay after and have fun, then he'd have to admit that he really didn't mean it that spending time with us was more of a priority.

What do you think? I'm sure you think it's my fault, Telly. But you're wrong.

Cwmi, you're looking at it from how you think you would have to feel with the whole being left while you're sick. Being selfish does not equal being a monster and hating someone. Is it right what he did? No. But being a hateful monster sounds extreme.

I always get the feeling that you two have totally different communication styles and both of you get frustrated with each other. The other thing that strikes me is neither of you trust each other on feel safe with each other

Cwmi, it seems you think that evenings and weekends should never be spent away from spouse and family. And if they do, you seem to think that's abusive. And that the person doesn't value the family. I'm curious, when is it okay for him to see or spend time with friends?

He goes out to lunch with friends. The only time he has to spend with the family is evenings and Sunday--and he spent all last Sunday (9am until 7pm) at that event, so you tell me: if a guy spends 8am-7pm at work or commuting m-f, then 9-6 on saturday doing the same thing, then 9-7pm on Sunday doing the same thing, how many of the leftover hours should be spent with friends instead of his wife and children?

***Edit***

I don't think anything is your fault. I really don't.

Do I think it's possible that you and your husband create a dynamic between the two of you that isn't as good as it could be? Yes. But I don't think either of you are "at fault"

That would depend on how many hours his wife can enthusiastically agree to?

Well, there is an author out there who has written articles about how people can learn to relate to one another without one having to be "right" and the other "wrong".

Since I can't write his name, I'm sorry to say that I will have to leave you guessing, lol!

In any case, I do think that one of the ways you and your husband could improve things is to try to understand how the other experiences a situation, vs. seeing it always in black and white. Right and wrong.

It doesn't change what you need from him, but it can both help you have compassion as you work through HOW you each get what you need. (In MB terms, it helps you to see some very important and sneaky DJ's that you may be overlooking)

At this point, what would you think about re-viewing the Myer's Briggs personality assessment as it relates to both of you and how you interact with each other?

I think it just might be easier to come at POJA, and PORH, and ALL the wonderful MB principles if you are doing so without judging each other in the process. Sometimes people actions are more complex and complicated than they seem... And it can help you to stop judging each other OR yourselves, because you can better understand why the other person is doing what they are doing (you and your H both seem to do this to each other, to me).

Also, if admiration is important to your H (have you determined whether or not that is the case? I forget what you reported to be his top EN's beyond DS, which may be more of an LB when not met than an actual EN when met), then how are you doing at admiring him for putting his foot down regarding travel?

I am finding opportunities to admire my H about all sorts of things, and I see it making him so happy, open and content. But that is truly one of his EN's, and I don't know if it is for your H--or if he is even letting you meet his EN's.

FWIW, I am now meeting all of my H's EN's (since I lost a lot of weight) and I see how much MY failure to do so in the past made it hard for him to move towards me in the way that I needed.

We still have bad days (had one last week, actually), and I still tend to blow those out of proportion in my own mind (thanks to my family of origin patterns that I learned), but when I am not overreacting, I can't help but be happy.

Last night, we went out on a date night, and were both weeping by the end because of our gratitude for one another and all we have been through. It was a love fest!

I want that for you (well, not the bad day part!)

I fail to see the DJ on my part in believing he didn't shoot, coming across evidence to the contrary, and telling him what I found and requesting an explanation. Please stop trying to talk me into 'understanding' deception rather than putting a stop to it. It's an LB, it must stop.

Here's another one that you'd probably like to chalk up to his way of communicating: last week, he told me that one of his old co-workers sent him a customer and that HE would be there to test drive on Friday. I went through his phone. Customer was a SHE. So I asked him, "Why did you tell me that was a guy?" He explained that oh, well, her husband was also going to come to the drive, so he used he. But the customer was the she. I told him it looked suspicious that he would lie about the gender of a customer, and he could have just used 'they' if that was the truth. I asked him what he would think if I told him that I had a meeting with a professor at school and would meet HER at 4pm, and he later found out that it was a guy. Would he wonder why I switched genders? He said yes, that would worry him, why would I hide that? I said EXACTLY. When he convolutes things because of some weird sense that his 'lie' will be better received than the truth (which is so far from the truth it's not funny), he makes things worse and further damages trust.

I told him I'm trying to forgive him for the past and he's making it very difficult by continuing with the little deceptions because that keeps the wounds open.

Of course I'm pleased about the travel. He is surprised and relieved at how easy it was.

After FC and UA time is met, no problem! That schedule barely leaves enough for those, though...